[LISA LEWIS] The Am I Ok? Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith Fringes, the Holistic Counseling Podcast, and Beta Male Revolution, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network. Welcome to the Am I Ok? Podcast, where you will discover that being highly sensitive is something to embrace and it’s actually a gift you bring to the world. We will learn together how to take ownership of your high sensitivity, so you can make positive changes in your life, in the lives of others, and it’s totally okay to feel this way. I’m your host, Lisa Lewis. I’m so glad you’re here for the journey. Welcome to today’s episode of the Am I Ok? Podcast. I’m your host, Lisa Lewis. Thank you so much for tuning in. I would like to remind my listeners that I offer a free eight-week email course titled Highly Sensitive People. My email course provides weekly tools that help you feel more whole in a world isn’t exactly made for us and I show you how your sensitivity can be seen as a unique gift and how many others are just like you. To find out more about my email course, please go to my website, amiokpodcast.com. So all you parents preteens and teens listen up. Today’s show is going to focus specifically on navigating friendships as a highly sensitive person, as a preteen, teen and even adult friendships. I haven’t had this topic on this show yet. I’m so excited to have my guest on today. So today my guest is Jessica Speer. Jessica is the award-winning author of BFF or NRF, (Not Really Friends)? A Girls Guide to Happy Friendships and Middle School – Safety Goggles Advised, which is releasing this summer in August, 2022. Blending activities, stories, and practical insights, her writing unpacks, the tricky social stuff that peaks during adolescence. She has a master’s degree in social sciences and explores social, emotional topics and ways that connect with kids. Jessica is regularly featured in and contributes to media outlets on topics related to kids, parenting and friendship. Welcome to the podcast, Jessica. [JESSICA SPEER] Thank you. I’m so happy to be here with you [LISA] I’m so happy to have you on and talk about this topic. I think it’s so important, especially now coming out of this pandemic, when all of the children, the kids, the teens were at home doing school online and feeling isolated in their bedrooms. So I think I just want to hear about this topic. [JESSICA] There’s a lot to talk about, especially now. [LISA] So I like to ask all my guests that come on the show, do you consider yourself a highly sensitive person? If so or not, could you share a little story about that? [JESSICA] Sure, sure. I do consider myself a highly sensitive person, which I didn’t learn until I was well into my forties. I didn’t even know that was a thing. I’ve always been really fascinated with relationships and worked in that arena. I’ve got a master’s degree in social sciences, but once I learned about the concept of highly sensitive people, it made so much sense for a lot of the choices I’ve made in my life. It also helped me understand my daughters better. So I later recognize that they both are also highly sensitive people, so just understanding that about myself and my family has opened a door to so many great conversations, which of course, knowing that now impacts all of our relationships. [LISA] Oh yes. I too found out later on in life that I was highly sensitive and I’m wishing, wow, I wish I had the information when I was younger growing up. And that’s okay. We just take it as it comes. So I’m interested how did you become a writer? [JESSICA] I’ve always been a writer, but starting about, and I wrote, early on in my career, I was often writing for nonprofits or other groups. I’ve been a college professor but starting about 10 years ago, I got really interested in writing for kids. A lot of that was inspired by the experiences my kids were having. So I loved to research and the first area I really dove deeply into was friendships because I noticed my kids having some struggles when they were in elementary school. That reminded me so much of my own struggle. So I dove into the research on that, uncovered some really interesting things that I wanted to share. So I started a friendship program that I ran in schools, this was prior to the pandemic and then eventually, that friendship program grew into a book. So it was a long process but for the past 10 years I’ve been writing mostly on social, emotional topics relating to kids. [LISA] Oh, wow. I love that story and how it just all unfolded as it did. Tell us about your friendship. [JESSICA] What I noticed, when my girls were in elementary school, friendships started to get more complicated and I so remembered that in myself. That made me really curious. I dove into research on what’s happening and there’s so much happening starting in the preteen years, and carrying all the way through the teen years with friendship that I wanted to raise some awareness within kids and also help them develop some skills to navigate that. So I put together a program which I ran in elementary school; the perfect age group for the program was summer between third and fifth grade. I ran it actually for, all genders. Mostly girls were the ones that participated in it so through that, I would share a lot of friendship truths, what I call friendship truths. We talk about skills to navigate conflict. I talked about a concept that I have the friendship pyramid, which we could talk about later too. So yes, it was just so fun to work directly with kids and they were so great at giving me feedback as to what was helpful. That’s what eventually shaped my first book, which is called BFF or NRF, (Not Really Friends)? A Girls Guide to Happy Friendships. [LISA] Oh wow. Can you share with us about the friendship pyramid and the friendship truth, I guess what is in your book? [JESSICA] Yes, sure, so what I learned and what I found working with kids is it was so helpful if, we shared some of these friendship truths early on and just talked about them because as adults, we learned a lot of these friendship truths over the course of our lives, often through times of struggle. But I was wondering what if I talked about these much earlier with kids and for many it offered so much insight and relief. So, friendship truth, number one is our healthiest friendships feel safe and accepting, so just putting out there at this time where there tends to be a lot of changes for kids and their friendships, just putting that out there, that, our healthiest friendships feel safe and accepting, help them know what to look for, in their friendships. That’s number one. Friendship number two is everyone develops friendship skills at a different pace. When we’re talking again, pre-teens, early teens, even into adulthood, we’re all great at some friendship skills and maybe have some room to grow in some others. So just talking about that, hey, everybody’s learning these skills. Some of us are good at some, some of us are good at others, so it makes sense that there’s conflict and there’s change and there’s struggles, because we’re all humans on this path, learning these things together. Friendship, truth number three. This one I think was one of the most helpful truth to kids and teens is friendships have different phases and change over time. So just putting that truth out there that, sometimes we can have a really close friend that something changes and that actually goes back to an acquaintance. Or vice versa, we can have someone who’s acquaintance that grows into a close friend, so throughout our lives, our friendship world is always changing. Girls would just have a sigh of relief, like, oh, okay, it’s not just me. This is something that happens, over the course of friendships. I’ll pause there because that’s a lot of information, but those are just some of the truths that kids just found so helpful and helped them avoid feeling like it was just them or they were the only ones. [LISA] Oh yes. I hear you on that. As a licensed psychotherapist and I work with adults, I don’t work with children or preteens or teens and so a lot of work that I do with my clients is about friendships or relationships. What I see or hear is, when we go back into their childhood and the friendships that they developed, that they may get stuck in a particular friendship or relationship that they have. It becomes like they feel like there’s something wrong with them and that they’ve done something wrong where we have to unpack it and pull apart like, well, there’s two people or more people in the relationship and it’s just not about you, but it’s also about the other people in the relationship that’s affecting it as a whole. That takes time to process that as an adult and maybe living li living with that through a long period of your life, it’s hard to come to a realization or look at it a different way. [JESSICA] Yes, I think it so helps to change the perspective as to, friendship changes are normal. It doesn’t make it easy. It’s really hard when you have a friendship shift that someone in that friendship is not ready for, and we really do grieve the loss of close relationships, but it’s pretty common. So I think just knowing that is something that happens in the normal life cycle of relationships eases that grief and that pain just a little bit, doesn’t take it away, but just knowing that happens and it’s normal and it’s okay. [LISA] What do you tell parents or what advice do you have parents when they see their child upset about a relationship or a friendship that they’re having? [JESSICA] I think one of the first things I always do is encourage the parents to help their kids navigate those big, uncomfortable emotions? So instead of, maybe saying don’t feel that way, or you shouldn’t feel that way, just helping them identify and navigate all those big, uncomfortable emotions because they’re real, and it’s highly sensitive people, they’re there and they might even be stronger emotions. So knowing that that’s okay to have all those emotions and, helping them process those and then, sometimes it can be helpful to just talk to them about some of these big picture things that, sometimes friendships do have a shift or, sometimes we need to put some work into a friendship to get it to a place where that friendship is working for both people in the friendship. I think keeping the conversation ongoing, letting them know that what they’re going through is perfectly normal and just being a sounding board for them. I think sometimes as parents, our knee jerk is to get in there and fix it, and problem solve. Often one of the most helpful things we can do is just be behind the scenes, support our, emotionally coaching our kids and, just listening deeply and encouraging them. But often, it’s just their process of kind learning how to develop some of these relationship skills on their own. [LISA] Okay, can you us some examples about what does that sound like to give emotional coaching as a parent? [JESSICA] Yes, because I think, that’s a learned skill, so emotional intelligence, we learn that over the course of our lives. So would be. Say your daughter is really upset by a friendship, helping her identify, what is she feeling? Sometimes we can know we’re really upset, but we’re not exactly we couldn’t put words to that. We can’t actually notice where that is in our body so, maybe saying something like, gosh, you seem really upset by this. Do you feel like this is really frustration or is this sadness or is this both, so helping them figure out, what actually emotions are they feeling and where do they notice those in their bodies? Maybe they, they get really sick to their stomach or maybe they notice their shoulders tensing up so helping them learn the skills to notice what actually they’re experiencing in that moment. Because as soon as we start to name our emotions, we’re then in a place to begin to tame them. But if we’re letting all these unrecognized emotions flow through it, sometimes they just keep spiraling around but if we can name them, identify them, even talk about them that’s often the first step to helping to start to process and work through those emotions. [LISA] Oh wow. That is lovely. I love it. That’s how I work with my clients too. I have the body, mind connection. Are you sure you’re not a therapist, because you sure sound like one. [JESSICA] Oh, I’ve definitely seen my share and worked with tons of school counselors, so I’m so grateful to yes, have the exposure to all this wonderful knowledge because I feel it’s so helpful. [LISA] It sure is. Can you share your observations from working with kids in your friendship program, especially around highly sensitive kids? [JESSICA] So what I noticed, interestingly, when I was running my program is a lot of the kids that were really drawn to it. I’m assuming, I never tested them, but I’m assuming just by working with them and learning their nature, many of them were highly sensitive. I think they’re really drawn to wanting some support in this area because friendships can feel, it may be more challenging, especially if they’re in a friendship with someone who’s not very highly sensitive. So there can be some disconnect there and the kids that were highly sensitive really wanted to know, why is this so hard or what can I do to make this work better? So they were very curious about the whole, navigating, friendships in general and what they can do to improve their relationships. So I found them to be some of the most active participants in my program. What I take away from that is I think as highly sensitive people sometimes we might be looking for, deeper connections with people, maybe more peaceful connections with people. So navigating those relationships that were not that, weren’t very deep or meaningful or weren’t very peaceful, that it was helpful for them to have some of those skills to understand not all relationships are like that. Not all relationships are really connected and deep and meaningful. Sometimes we just have acquaintances and friends, that are really, really light, casual friendships. [LISA] I often hear, if I ever find a friendship, a relationship that is deeper, it’s not surface level. [JESSICA] Yes, yes. So here’s what I’ve found. This is actually friendship truth, number four, that this was a relief for many kids and teens, especially highly sensitive ones, close friendships can be hard to find. That one, I think I kept noticing that, especially for a lot of kids that are more sensitive, they do have a harder time finding those deeper level of connections. So that is not unusual at all. So just knowing that that close friends are hard to find, that can be a big relief. It’s that, okay, so I just haven’t found those close relationships yet. They’re out there, and even speaking to, about some of, some of my very own kids, I know, some of those close friendships didn’t really form until high school now. Not that there weren’t friends and things like that, but the level of friendship that one of my daughters wanted that didn’t really click into place until high school? So it can take a while to find those, those deeper level of connections [LISA] And I see the bind is as time goes on and more time goes on and like, oh, I still haven’t found that deep connection. I’m still waiting. Then the person starts to feel like, oh, there must be something wrong with me because this is not happening. [JESSICA] Yes, it is. It’s so, especially in those vulnerable, preteen and teen years where, they want more than anything to fit in and be part of a group. I mean, that’s such an important phase of development for acceptance and belonging. So it does feel, it can feel really overwhelming and lonely and unsettling. A lot of the, just working in groups with other girls that were along this path was really validating. So, if you do have a teen or a child that is having a hard time finding that fit, is there some sort of group or way for them to feel part of something and connected in some way that might help? Even if it’s a certain, say they’re way into art or something, can they get in some sort of group that they connect on that level or something? So there are some behind the scene things that parents can do to help if kids are feeling like they’re really looking for that, they’re looking for that deeper level of connection. What are some ways that they connect with peers, especially around something they all really love, whether it’s sports or art or, theater, but, sometimes, just getting involved in those things can help, just keep moving these things forward. We’re more likely to make those connections in those places. [LISA] Okay, I love that. Love that. What do you recommend as a highly sensitive person or non highly sensitive person, when a friendship goes sour and it has a rupture or it ends? What do you recommend to get through that time? Do you try to repair it or you just let it go? [JESSICA] That is certainly going to depend on the relationship. Sometimes if the person, if both people in the relationship really want to continue that relationship, it’s worth the time and the effort to try to work through that, to repair, but sometimes, and, oftentimes it’s maybe that friendship maybe coming to a close. When we look at kids and teens, there’s so much transition in friendships. There was a study done at UCLA of first year, middle schoolers, just during that first year of middle schoolers, two thirds of them change their friendship groups. It can happen almost yearly sometimes for some kids. It’s always in a state of flux as they’re exploring their identity and figuring out who they are. So change is the norm. In adults that change doesn’t go away. The average adult friendship lasts, seven years, some longer, some shorter, but the average is seven years. So friendships do have seasons and sometimes there’s a shift in somebody that you the needs of somebody or some lifestyle change that prompts that friendship coming to a close. So what I encourage for people to do is figure out, is this a friendship that both parties actually still would like to continue, and then if it’s worth putting the time and effort into that. If not, you can either have the friendship conversation to bring that friendship to an end. Those are really hard conversations, or we can gracefully let that friendship phase away. So thinking through what is the most, what makes sense for that relationship? The majority of friendships do phase away. That’s the approach that most people take. There’s been studies down on this too. What has been found is, when friendships do just fade out, it actually keeps the door open that someday, maybe those friends would reconnect sometimes, so that’s not a bad way to end a friendship, if it makes sense and if both parties are feeling dignified in that process. That’s a totally viable option to just gracefully, let that friendship fade away. Or if it’s been a really close friendship, maybe, you need to have that tough friendship ending conversation. [LISA] I’d like to think of it’s this organic how friendships can come and go and just look at my life. Like you have work friendships as adults, and maybe you’re closer than if you get a new job or your friend gets a new job, then maybe you’re not as close anymore. Maybe the friendship just fades away over time. But also it doesn’t have to, it’s just about how much time each party is willing to put into it, to keep the friendship going. [JESSICA] Exactly. Yep, exactly. So, I think that’s what makes that friendship truth, that friendship have different phases and change over time, so important, because it normalizes that. It happens through to us throughout our lives, so knowing that, no, it’s not comfortable sometimes, but it’s happened. It happens and it’s normal and it’s okay. We’re all usually doing the best we can, with the skills and the time that we’ve got. [LISA] I’m curious, what do you think, or what do you know about, these children had to be at home for two years or most of them, or some of them, or year and a half online isolated and not, they’re supposed to be together, they’re supposed to be interacting and working on these social skills and that was taken away from them. How do you think that has affected them or will affect them later on in life? Is it going to matter, not going to matter? [JESSICA] That’s a good question. I do I feel for kids because I don’t think we realized how hard this was going to be on them, our desire to keep them safe, hurt them in this social, emotional development. So what I’ve heard from a lot of teachers and counselors is that kids are not doing great, being home and isolated at a time when they are really wanting to connect with peers. They’re in this important phase of figuring out who they are and they’re honing these social skills and, gathering feedback from peers in this process. So what I’m hearing from a lot of teachers that they’re noticing kids are very behind in that now that they’re back in a school setting. I’m in Colorado and what I’ve heard is that this was a tough year for teachers because behavior in the classroom changed because kids got put back in the classroom. It wasn’t great this year. That makes sense because this was such a huge disruption in their schedule, their routines, their social emotion development. So it totally makes sense that kids are having a hard time now. But one thing I am hopeful about is I do feel like kids are so resilient. So I am hopeful that, getting them back, getting them back in routines, back in schedules, schools also have a heightened awareness of the important social, emotional needs of kids. So I’m hoping that schools really plug that back into their curriculum. I’m hopeful that, kids and teens will catch back up, but this has been really hard on them. A lot of them are having a tough time right now. [LISA] What message would you want to give to kids and parents and even highly sensitive ones that they may just feel it going, God, this is so hard. I don’t even feel like myself. I was a different person before this pandemic and now I just feel, I don’t even know who I am. [JESSICA] What I would say is you are not alone. There’s a lot of people, kids all the way through adults that feel like they’ve lost their ground and their relationships have crumbled or changed over the course of this time. So, first message is you are not alone. I think it’s important for all of us to find the support that we need to reconnect and know that’s going to take some time, but think about, what might you need that would help you get back in your groove and maybe putting time back into doing the things you really love? Maybe if you’ve gotten deeply into social media, noticing how that makes you feel. I noticed even with my kids spend yes, ended up spending a lot more time online and social media. Sometimes they noticed that had a real negative effect on their moods. They had to start to really watch their time there and watch, notice what they’re actually seeing online and make some changes there. So, this is a time of just getting real introspective, figuring out what everybody needs to come out of this and get back to feeling like themselves. [LISA] Wow, that’s powerful. Thank you so much for that message. Just to switch gears a little bit to adult friendships and what do you recommend for adult friendships being highly sensitive? [JESSICA] That’s a good question because I notice the same thing, that girls and the boys in my program did is that, for me as a highly sensitive person, I tend to keep my friendship circle smaller, because I have no need to have a very large group of friends. I’m also introverted. So I put my time and my energy into smaller friendships. They’re not even, they not necessarily have to be people that are right there with me. They’re people that I might have met 10 years ago that I just check in with via text or phone calls. So I think this is different for everybody, but for highly sensitive people, what I found is sometimes just noticing the few people in your life that you feel like you might have a deeper connection with or there’s that possibility and putting my time and energy into that. Now I’m not closing my door to, all of the friends, but I know that for me, it tends to be a smaller bucket, just a few friends that are the ones that are the wind beneath my wings, the ones that are my support system and doing what I can to cultivate those friendships, to be a good friend and those friendships. For me, that just makes a little more simple, because I don’t feel the need to have this huge, network of friends. I’m out there and I have to do a lot of stuff, publicly, and I have a lot of casual friendship, but for me just cultivating those few relationships that are really meaningful to me, just, just makes it a lot easier and doable for me. [LISA] I, myself, I agree with that. I have to have a smaller friendship group and then I’ll be looking around going, oh, wait a minute, do I need to have more friends? Is this okay? Then I have to remind myself, no, this is okay. I can relax. And it could take up a lot of energy, especially as introvert, highly sensitive, put yourself out there because afterwards coming home after interacting with people, it’s like, whew man. I’m like, I’m exhausted. I need to rest and recharge so I can do this again tomorrow. [JESSICA] Yes, the same thing happens to me and I do the same exact thing. Because I have a husband that’s much more extroverted and so he’s much more socially busy than I’m and I watch him and I’m like, ah, gosh, maybe I should be doing that too. But then I realize I actually don’t want to do that. Actually, sometimes I’m like, oh, you go and I read a book. So you’re just knowing that but it is easy as a highly sensitive person to question ourselves. So be like, am I doing this right? But if we really check in to like what we’re needing and how we’re feeling it often is just exactly what we need. [LISA] Are there specific questions that a highly sensitive teen or an adult can ask themselves just to check in with themselves to say like, oh, okay. I’m okay, I got this? [JESSICA] Yes because I think sometimes we do question ourselves almost too much? We second guess ourselves so much and have such a, I think a deeper perspective of what we’re seeing happening around us. So I would say, more than even a questioning for highly sensitive people just noticing within yourself what really works for you and knowing that is awesome. If it’s working for you, that is perfect. That’s what you need to be doing. It’s might not at all be what everyone else is doing, but just noticing, what lights you up, what makes you feel like your best self? What makes you feel comfortable and safe. And just, yes, being aware of that. What friendship and relationships looks like for you is probably not going to be what it looks like for a lot of other people and that is totally okay. [LISA] Wow, I love that too. You have so many good messages, Jessica. [JESSICA] Oh, thank you, Lisa. I appreciate it. [LISA] What is the friendship pyramid? [JESSICA] Okay, so this is a graphic that is in my first book BFF or Not Really Friends. This just shows the lay of the land of friendships and it includes a lot of the truths. So if you picture in your head, just a triangle, so the shape of a pyramid at the very, very tippy top of that are close friends. Right next to that, it says harder to find. There’s that truth again, that close friends are hard to find and the qualities of these friendships. So these are the friendships that are really accepting. They’re filled with trust. there’s a different level of comfort and safety in these, but they are hard to find. A lot of people just have a couple of these and teens and tweens might have a period where they don’t feel like they have any. So all that’s perfectly normal. Then underneath that, like a big chunk of the pyramid is friends. Now these, I use that term friends really loosely, especially now that a lot of people have online friends. So for me, friends is classmates and team members and neighbors and maybe coworkers. These friendships, they might be fun, they’re fairly comfortable, but not that comfortable, because we don’t know them as well as our close friends, especially for a highly sensitive person. We might not feel completely comfortable even with our friends. Then these are the friendships that we probably don’t share as much of ourselves with our deeper level thoughts and emotions, but they’re still friends and they play an important role in our lives. Then underneath that, so the base of the pyramid are acquaintances and there’s always new people out there. Keeping an eye out and realizing that there’s people out there that we haven’t met yet that might eventually grow into friends or even close friends and then running up and down, the sides of the pyramid are change. So you could go from a close friend back down to acquaintance or back up, so just helping understand the lay of the land of friendships in general. [LISA] I was just thinking in my mind, running up and down the pyramid and just like, what do I need at this moment? Oh, maybe I need a closer friend right now because I need to process something or no, I’m more relaxed. I’m more open. I can be more free and I can maybe go down to the bottom and check it out and see if there’s anyone new I want to bring into my circle. [JESSICA] Yes, I love that. Starting with what you’re needing in the moment. I love that. Yes, that’s a great way to use the pyramid. [LISA] Oh wow. I want to check out your books. This is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, great advice and recommendations. I can see that you’ve been working on this for a long time and doing this work for a long time and I’m so glad that you’re sharing this with the world. [JESSICA] Thank you so much. It’s been such a journey that I’ve grown so much too. So since I have been really diving deep into this for 10 years as a highly sensitive person it’s so, the wonderful thought, the thing about that is that I’ve been able to make sense of this myself. That’s one of the side benefits of being a researcher and writer is I got so much clarity in this process, so that was so helpful for me and then to be able to put that out there for others has been, it’s been truly a gift. [LISA] Jessica, what would you like listeners to take away from the show today? [JESSICA] Ooh, I would say just remember that, it is so important for everybody to have some safe spaces in their lives. It could be a therapist, it could be a family member, it could be a friend, but to have some places in your life that you feel like you are really seen and heard. So that is something that we all need to make sure we have for our own wellbeing. For younger teens and preteens, if they haven’t found that in their close friendships, their caregivers can help connect them with other ways so they feel like they have that because that’s just really important that everybody has a place that they feel seen and heard. That’s my biggest takeaway, make sure that everybody, you, all the listeners, you have that and if not, really work to find that and add that to your life. [LISA] I love that too. It’s really important as an adult too, to have that. [JESSICA] Absolutely [LISA] And do you have a free gift that you would like to share with my audience? [JESSICA] I do. So if anyone’s interested in the friendship pyramid, which a lot of the families I work with, this is a fridge worthy resource that they just stick right on the refrigerator, because it helps navigate their families through this if any listeners subscribe to my eNewsletter, it’s a monthly eNewsletter; I write about all sorts of social, emotional topics, they get a free downloadable copy of that friendship pyramid and a few other resources that help in families connecting and having great conversations about all this. [LISA] I want to check that out. Where can listeners get in touch with you? [JESSICA] The easiest way is my website, which is jessicaspeer, S-P as in Peter, E-E-R.com, so, jessicaspeer.com and there, you’ll see the sign up to my newsletter as well as links to all my social media. There’s a contact me page. If anybody’s got any questions, feel free to reach out and lots of information about my books there too. [LISA] Where can listeners buy your book, the one that’s coming out? [JESSICA] They’re available anywhere books are sold, so you can get it, they might not have it in stock at your local bookstore, but they can get it in stock. It’s on Amazon, it’s at Barnes and Noble it’s on target.com so pretty much anywhere books are sold. [LISA] Great. I was looking at your website and I love the art on your books. It’s entertaining. It’s inviting. I wanted to keep reading and looking at more to find out more information. [JESSICA] Well, thank you. I know my, the publisher did a beautiful job of connecting with amazing illustrators and book designers to make it fun. Because these are tough subjects we’re talking about, but the book has to be super accessible and fun. Both my books are filled with quizzes and activities, just so it’s a fun process of learning to connect with ourselves and with other people. [LISA] Thank you so much, Jessica, for coming on this show today. It’s been lovely to talk to you. [JESSICA] Oh thank you so much for having me and thanks for the work that you do. I’m so grateful for that. I think it’s so helpful when people start to really understand the tendencies of highly sensitive people and to know the gifts that go along with that. So thank you for spreading the word about that. It’s so important. [LISA] You’re welcome. I love doing it. Thank you, all my listeners, for tuning in today. Please let me know what you thought of the episode. Send me an email to lisa@amiokpodcast.com. Remember to subscribe, rate and review wherever you get your podcast. To find out more about highly sensitive persons, please visit my website at amiokpodcast.com and subscribe to my free eight-week email course to help you navigate your own sensitivities and to show you that it’s okay not to take on everyone else’s problems. This is Lisa Lewis reminding each and every one of you that you are okay. Until next time be well. Thank you for listening today at Am I Ok? Podcast. If you are loving the show, please rate, review and subscribe to it on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you’d like to learn how to manage situations as a highly sensitive person, discover your unique gift as a highly sensitive person, and learn how to be comfortable in your own skin, I offer a free eight-week email course called Highly Sensitive People. Just go to amiokpodcast.com to sign up. In addition, I love hearing from my listeners, drop me an email to let me know what is on your mind. You can reach me at lisa@amiokpodcast.com. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want to professional, you should find one.